Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Review of TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE By Punkin Nightshade

Howdy! This is Punkin Nightshade writin new postins for The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, and we done started countindown to Halloween! Today I am speakin to you about a movin picture that is not only a good one for Halloween, but also right interestin. It's called Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, cause Tim Burton was the feller what directed this movin picture, and it was based on an old folktale about a feller what ended up married to a dead lady. The interestin thing about this movin picture is that it is not made with human actors, but instead a bunch of little puppets usin stop-motion photography. It is also a musical, which means that ever now and then they sing a song about some of the story goin on, and is not like an opera where they sing it all the way through and sometimes in another language.

This picture starts out bein about Victor, who is a nervous kind of feller who's goin to get married to a girl namedVictoria. His parents and her parents have set it up, cause Victoria's parents are floocy folks what don't have no money, and they figure if they marry up Victoria to Victor, whose parents are common folks that does have money, then everbody in both families will be set, cause this picture is takin place in the Victorian age where havin both money and social status was desirable, which is kind of like now. Anyway, Victor ain't wantin to get married to someone he don't even know, but once he meets Victoria he takes a shine to her, and she to him. They start rehearsin on the weddin, and cause both the parents are meddlin with everthing in the vows, Victor gets so wound up he can't say his vows properly, and durn near burns up Victoria's mama's dress, and the pastor kicks him out the church and tells him to get them vows or don't come back. Victor goes out to the woods to practice, and finally says the vows right after he puts his weddin ring on an old tree root, what looks like someone's finger. Only it ain't no tree root, and after Victor says the vows that tree root grabs hold of him and somethin starts comin out of the ground, and this was where it got interestin for me cause I ain't never seen no puppet show what had folks comin out the ground before, and the one that comes up is a dead bride named Emily, who is the Corpse Bride from the title. She kisses him, and they get whisked off to the Land Of The Dead.

The Land Of The Dead in this movin picture ain't nothin like you'd expect, neither. It's real colorful and bright, and everbody's mostly skeletons, and always goin down the pub cause since they're all dead, they ain't got nothin to worry about overmuch. Victor learns that Emily was kilt on her weddin night, and that she has been waitin for her true love ever since. Victor don't want none of that, cause Emily is dead and he's livin, so he runs off, but Emily finds him and gives him a weddin gift, which turns out to be his old dog Scraps from when he was a little boy. Scraps is uncommon well-named, since he is now a skeleton. Victor tries to trick Emily into goin back to the Land Of The Livin, cause he is really in love with Victoria, though Emily is fairly nice for a dead person. But it don't work, and Emily snatches him back to the Land Of The Dead in front of Victoria. And that's where the plot starts thickenin, cause Victoria's parents decide she's gone crazy in the head and start plannin to marry her up to this evil lookin, snidely kind of feller named Lord Barkis Bittern, who's been hangin around the weddin party ever since the movin picture started. Meanwhile, Victor has decided he's fallin in love with Emily, and he starts figurin out how to be dead so he can marry up with Emily, until it is revealed what's really goin on. The rest of the movie is about Victor tryin to save Victoria and work out this whole mess.

All the puppets in this picture had a live actor doin their voices. Johnny Depp plays Victor, and he has done a mess of other pictures with Mr. Burton, such as Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow. Mr. Tim Burton's main squeeze Helena Bonham Carter plays the dead Corpse Bride Emily, and Emily Watson plays Victoria. Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse play Victoria's parents, and Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney play Victor's parents, and all of them is British and are real well-known in England and such. Richard E. Grant is another British actor who is doin old Barkis Bittern, and he has been in a picture called The Little Vampire that's right good. And there is a couple of other older British actors named Christopher Lee and Michael Gough, who done durn near just about everthing there is to be done, and they're playin the pastor and this old codger skeleton in the Land Of The Dead who is tryin to help out Victor and Emily. This here cast is a crackerjack.

All the music and songs in this film was writ up by Danny Elfman and John August, and Mr. Elfman is doin the voice of Bonejangles, who is a singin dancin skeleton what leads everbody in the pub in a dancin and singin routine. Old Mr. Tim Burton has made some mighty strange but very interestin movin pictures, and most any of his pictures like Beetlejuice or Mars Attacks would be good for Halloween. If you're interested in a love story along with your spooks, then this one is a good one right here.

So I am done here, and blessed be to y'all. Be sure you come on back tomorrow for our 31 Days Of Halloween, cause we're countin down towards Halloween time!